Dave Patten's University of Entertainment

"Acceptance" First Featured Article

PutABeatOn.com gets the first feature!!  Check it out here and make sure you hit www.acceptancemovie.com

Acceptance Trailer

Check out the Official Trailer!!!!!!

www.AcceptanceMovie.com

Acceptance Trailer Debut Tomorrow!!

Debuting the Acceptance trailer tomorrow afternoon!!

Shooting for Insignia Fundraising

Shot a few extra clips for the Insignia fund raising video I had to make for RocketHub.com.  I'll post the full profile when it's finished.

Fastest Film Conceptualization Ever

As noted in my previous post, I plan to shoot a film this week, because there is absolutely no time like the present.

I read an article on M. Night in the Inquirer today.  He shot his first feature when he was 22.  Case in point.

I met up with Josh West on Friday around 3pm.  We hit up Suburban Square to grab an iced coffee and brainstorm.  In that 3 hour session we thought of our idea.

 

I went home with it and wrote out the 40 page screenplay in 8 hours Saturday morning, from 7am-2:45pm.  Yes I remember the exact times lol I'm pretty damn proud of it.  An average screenplay is usually closer to 90-100pages, yes I know.  But this screenplay isn't a spec, it's a director's screenplay.  Yes I am coining a new term.  There is no detail written about location, or character descriptions, or actions because I already know them all in my head and saw no reason in typing them all out.

We crafted the story based on what we have available, shooting wise.  All the actors are people we know.  All the locations are either my house or Josh's, or local parks, creeks and parking lots.  No guns, car chases or explosions.  Stuff we can actually film!

I met up with Josh again today (Sunday) to edit the first draft.  We tied up every loose end and added some awesome new elements in about a 4 hour session.

Went home, watched a few episodes of Rescue Me (my new favorite show of all time) to clear my head, had dinner and brewed up some blueberry vanilla green tea, and went back to work.  I just finished the revisions aka final draft around 9pm.

You want to know work ethic? you come to me.

"INSIGNIA" Promo Poster

The first official promo poster for our feature film "Insignia" is out!

Boring Business Plans

Horribly boring but ridiculously necessary -- the business plan!  Spent this morning finishing up the plan for the feature film Insignia, grand totaling at 23 pages.  I'll be using it when presenting to investors for capital.  When combined with Josh West's treatment, synopsis and character descriptions, the full package will probably be around 55 pages.

Feels goooooooooooooood

Feature Treatment

As my previous posts have documented, Josh West and I hit the mountains this past weekend to work out the story for the feature film we are venturing in to.  We had our fair share of arguing over characters and motives, behaving like typical dorky screenwriters.  But after three days of straight working and brainstorming, we landed on the perfect story.

Earlier this week I had a lot to get done at the office so Josh took the reigns with the treatment and started working it out.  The man comes back two days later, blurry-eyed and hardly able to stay awake with a 25-page treatment.  That's what I call working, take notes!

"Crio Bay is the story of a small-town dockhand and orphaned son of an anarchist martyr who wants nothing more than to leave his home and escape the stigma and memory of his father’s death. Days from leaving, after fatefully finding himself aiding the unknowing sister of a fugitive wanted for a political assassination, whom he put behind bars, he is thrust into a web of deceit as he tests the boundaries of love, friendship, and right and wrong."

Locked Away

This past weekend Josh West and I went up to the mountains to essentially lock ourselves in a room and not come out until we had a screenplay for our feature.  It was a lot less weird and a lot more fun than that sounds haha and we did get a lot done.

Writing, like all things creative, is just a matter of applying yourself.  When you force yourself to work for hours upon hours, you can come up with some great material.  If you just dabble in it for an hour or two every other day, it's going to take you about a year and a half just to come up with a story lol.

On the lake out in rural PA.  Josh West (top) and Dave Patten (above).

Inspirational Sunset

This photo is worth all the words I could ever write:

photo by Dave Patten via iPhone 3GS

Our inspiration while writing our feature film project -- Poconos PA